Did anyone notice that Orlando Bloom's last day of shooting involved a twelve hour shoot of a fight with an orc. Must have been an important orc for such a fight sequence; does this mean that Legolas takes on Azog or Bolg after Thorin is killed; food for thought indeed, but an 18 month wait to find out.

And seeing how every dwarf in AUJ is capable of Legolas-style stunts, I'm expecting Legolas will ride a balrog into space, transform it into a meteor, and hurl it back down into the battlefield. "You're love of the halflings leaf has clearly slowed your mind"

I agree that it is likely that he was fighting an important orc or they wouldn't have bothered with the time and money to get it right. Perhaps they kept Azog for Thorin's fight and Legolas fights Bolg. Who knows? We certainly won't until TABA

Maybe somehow he befriends Fili and Kili and keeps Bolg at bay until Beorn arrives?

If you want a source for more theories just go to fanfiction.net

On a more serious note, it could very well be that it went so long because they had to do multiple takes because a stunt wasn't executed right, or someone lost a sword when they shouldn't have, or someone dropped an arrow or broke a bowstring, a stuntman may have gotten hurt, etc.

There are a lot of reasons why it would take 16 hours to film a proper fight scene. Not to mention moving the camera to various angles to capture exactly what you want to see. I can imagine they had many pauses while they rearranged equipment for close ups, panning, zoom, as well as various angles for the exact same five seconds of fighting.

And since we all have heard at one point or another that Bloom is IRL extremely clumsy, I can imagine how difficult it would be to perform some of those, erm, elaborate (meaning occasionally OTT) stunts that Legolas has to execute flawlessly! Half Elven Daughter of Celethian of the Woodland Realm

Don't recommend that site without warning everyone that it has been flooded with insane movie-only fangirls!! Seriously, it has become a scary place. I avoid it like the plague now... which is kind of sad actually. I shouldn't have to be fleeing my own fandom. But I am trying to remain in denial about TABA for a while yet.

*deep breath*

Sorry, Cirashala, but reading (or just reading the summary) of one too many bad fanfictions has scarred me for life.

As for Legolas and the orc, I just figure that he was fighting one of Bolg's bodyguards or Azog's hunters. Hmm, seems they have too many heroes and not enough super-nasty orcs for all the epic battles they want... "I had forgotten that. It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels. The world is all grown strange. Elf and Dwarf in company walk in our daily fields; and folk speak with the Lady of the Wood and yet live; and the Sword comes back to war that was broken in the long ages ere the fathers of our fathers rode into the Mark! How shall a man judge what to do in such times?"

"As he ever has judged. Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house."

Seriously, I was only kidding! Although yes I do read fanfiction (write some too-but definitely not those awful shipping ones-that's disgusting!) but I am very selective about what I read and if it gets to be too stupid, I quit that story.

I also fully understand that there is no way most people who write fanfiction are going to be doing Tolkien justice, although once in a while I come across a phenomenal story written by someone who merely wonders what if this happened instead of that and goes on to write an absolutely amazing story while still keeping the spirit of Tolkien alive within their writing-in essence, speculation just like we do here, only via storytelling instead of posting There are a select few that I believe may become best selling authors should they ever put as much passion into their own stories someday. I just find it interesting to see how people show different perspectives on the character traits they identify with the characters within the story. Sometimes I notice a character trait that after I watch the movie again I see where they get it, but missed it before. Lol perhaps some of these phenomenal authors would have done the screenplay more justice according to the tastes of some others on TORn who were not content with how the actual script was written in real life (I personally loved the movie and appreciate each medium- book, movie, and FF- for its own merits)

But to each their own.

As to looking for serious speculation like we are doing in this particular thread- I was only kidding I promise!

Sorry to dredge up bad memories for you Half Elven Daughter of Celethian of the Woodland Realm

On Movie web there are two quotes in the one article: one talking about 16 hours filming and the other 12 hours; I chose the first as it made the point of a singular orc more clearly. So my quote from move web is correct (not sure what the haha!! refers to) http://www.movieweb.com/news/orlando-bloom-and-evangeline-lilly-wrap-shooting-on-the-hobbit-trilogy; and easy to check.

but that's not exactly what he said. The fact that the article mentions two different hour amounts makes it even more sketchy because it seems to me that they are both referring to the same day. But oh well, time will tell.

The "haha" wasn't scoffing you or anything, just to show that I'm not being nasty about it or anything.

I have read some very wonderful fanfiction written by people who obviously have done their research and who (gasp) have even read The Silmarillion. However, they're few and far in between... sadly. I do really like reading it when someone intelligently and respectfully explores a theory of their own or pursues a, "What if?" angle.

However, for every one of us who are out to speculate in a serious manner or have a bit of fun, there are those who... well... you know. *pets my copy of the book in order to counteract bad memories* My precious...

So... as far as serious speculation goes, my opinion is that Legolas will fight one of Bolg's bodyguard. I could stir the pot and suggest that PJ will bring in *another* orc miniboss for the BOFA for Legolas to fight, but I won't do that.

Instead, I'd just like to point out.. heeeeyyyy... Thranduil will need a big scene in the BOFA, too. So who is he going to end up fighting? No one has speculated on this point yet. Is he another person in the long list of candidates who could potentially off Azog or Bolg? Any thoughts on this, people? "I had forgotten that. It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels. The world is all grown strange. Elf and Dwarf in company walk in our daily fields; and folk speak with the Lady of the Wood and yet live; and the Sword comes back to war that was broken in the long ages ere the fathers of our fathers rode into the Mark! How shall a man judge what to do in such times?"

"As he ever has judged. Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house."

Slightly off point but what about Dain Ironfoot and big fight scene
[In reply to]

Can't Post

It seems Billy Connelly wasn't around or pick ups (unless he was very low key). So does Dain get big fight scene or does he just lord it over everybody from his big pig?? Note Blly is getting on a bit for too much action, and I suspect it is not his style.

or any of the other Dwarves. The whole point of Legolas' friendship with Gimli is that it was groundbreaking. Legolas' presence makes sense in that he realistically probably would have been in Mirkwood at the time of Bilbo's adventure, but they're going to have to be very careful about putting the cart before the horse. Some hints of what is to come, perhaps - maybe even some mutual respect, but not quite friendship.

I also wonder how they're going to handle Legolas' presence vis-a-vis Bilbo, as there's no indication in either cannon or the movieverse as far as I remember that they knew eachother before the Council of Elrond. I don't know how they're going to deal with that.

In LOR they never acually met, but Bilbo was at Rivendell at the time of the Council. Better to keep them apart in these two films for credibility and continuity sake, so how they do that will be interesting. Bilbo is knocked out for most of the Battle of Five Armies but in Desolation of Smaug and the barrel scene???

Thranduil and his people who traveled with him to the Mountain are staying in Dale, rather than on the open ground that they do in the book. Bilbo has climbed over the wall at this point, and has found Gandalf within the camp in Dale. He walks with him, to find Legolas and Tauriel arriving to support Thranduil in case a fight should break out. Then...comes the Orc-surprise.

We've seen shots in the vlogs showing Gandalf, and others, fighting Orcs on the streets of Dale. Maybe this is just continuing coverage of the BoFA. It could spill into the city, rather than only on open ground around the foot of the Mountain. And Bilbo would have gone back to the dwarves, to shock Thorin with the Arkenstone scene. So I think the only thing that really changes much is that Gandalf meets Bilbo in the Elven camp earlier than in the book (where Bilbo meets Gandalf as he is walking back to the Mountain). That's not to say that Gandalf hadn't been in Thranduil's camp for a little while beforehand. There is no explicit mentioning of when he arrived at Erebor. We know when the assault on DG happens, but nothing of his travels afterwards (anyone step in here if I've missed something/given erroneous facts, as I do every once and awhile ).

That's all entirely based on me trying to fit together the bits and pieces we've seen along with book events. But of course, there may be alterations/additions made to this that falsify my thoughts. But if my guesses above are remotely correct, there really wouldn't be that much difference from the text here.